


Task and Tabernacle

by Azzandra



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Horror, Cannibalism (mention), Fantasy, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Magic, Magical Pregnancy, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Second Person, Past Character Death, Trans Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-08 15:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are a priestess, you have to follow the path the goddesses put before you, even if you get on that path after being kidnapped by a nomadic band of refugees in need of clergy. That kind of thing just happens sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Who Brought the Sack?

“How good are you with the pen?” the Mayor asks, after lighting her pipe. You watch a curl of smoke wend through the air.

“I know which end to hold,” you reply, because this is not the question you were expecting when you were invited into the Mayor's office.

The Mayor nods.

“You know the bridge outside town?” she says after a while, peering at you.

“Yeah?”

“Could your pen help with that?” she asks.

You purse your lips thoughtfully.

“We don't need it for anything,” you say. You want to say 'leave the damn thing burned, there are dangerous things on the other side', but you don't because that's the kind of alarmist advice the Mayor dislikes.

“Someone does,” the Mayor grunts. “The Errant King will be passing through.”

The Errant King! That should get the town in a tizzy. He strikes such a romantic figure, the wandering king sans kingdom, bearer of a broken crown and survivor of the Battle of Three Monarchs. Not that anyone but historians call it that. To most everyone, it's the Last Bloody Stand, where the war that should have been surrendered long ago reached its overdue conclusion.

“He means to pass over the bridge?” you ask.

“He means to pass his whole army over it,” the Mayor says.

“Tell me he's not trying to recapture the City,” you say.

“Sweet Veru, I hope not,” the Mayor says, shaking her head. “Kick off another war over that heap of stones? No, let the damn Liners have it.”

Secretly, you think the same. The City is where you finished your schooling and spent the first few years of your priesthood, but that was concurrent with the last years of the war. Those were bad times, and the things you witnessed make you wish they'd burned the City after it was over.

“Alright, then what does he want?”

“Kings don't confide in me,” the Mayor replies. “Though it's probably not even anything interesting. A contract, maybe. Only part that interests me is if you can fix the bridge. There'll be a lot of coin in it for the town if you do.”

“That's reassuring! The chapel could use some of that coin.”

“Yes, hm. Well,” the Mayor temporizes. She is loathe to part with any of the coin so quickly, even if some of it was going to go to your chapel anyway. “But you can, yes?”

A curl of smoke loops strangely, the only sign of the subtle magics the Mayor is subconsciously weaving. She's been the Mayor of Keylore for thirty-five years, and you can only imagine the extent of her office spellwork, working to persuade you at this very moment. Not that it would work very well on a vilda, but after a few decades, these things take on a life of their own.

“I can,” you say.

You don't particularly want to, but you can. You just hope this isn't the kind of small decision which snowballs into another disaster like the last war. You are a vilda, it would be a terrible embarrassment if you of all people had no foresight in such matters.

 

* * *

 

You take out your notebook that night, and the nice pen you were gifted once you graduated as an initiate. It's after dark that you finally have the time to slip out of the chapel and go out to the bridge.

The burnt husk of the bridge on either side of a gaping ravine hints at better times. This isn't one of the iron monstrosities the harried engineers would build during the war to hastily stretch over some new crater or disaster zone and get troops on the other side with as little fuss as possible. This was a product of peace.

You walk the few remaining cobbles and touch the broken pillars of golden marble, now overrun with moss, and try to imagine what it might have looked like.

You open your notebook to a new page. With a flick of the wrist, you put down the first word. _Bridge_. This is your starting point.

Bridge. You close your eyes and think about the feel of cobblestone under your feet.

Describe it.

You pen flits over the page smoothly, old habit returning, and when you get to the bottom of the page, you rip it out of your notebook and send it on the wind. It burns gold, then incandescent white, and before it even has the chance to disappear, you are already furiously working one the next page.

You start with how solid it is (should be, will be, is), and you draw on the shapes around you, on the hints of an architect's care for details, on the pre-war aesthetics of restrained decadence.

The pages fly out of your notebook, one by one, and float, and land, and where they land, there is _bridge_.

When you are finally released from your fugue, you are on the other side of the ravine, and you look back upon a beautiful bridge, gleaming white and gold in the soft sunrise. It likely does not look like it used to, but it looks like the old one might have looked.

Scribe magic is not the most powerful or accessible of the magics, but it has the benefit of being extremely reliable.

 

* * *

 

The Errant King's ambulatory nation is more joke than legend. The tent city which houses the last remnants of the Hinnavoyan people, on the roam for upwards of twenty years, is its own kind of traveling show. It springs up in an hour, the result of long practice, and by nightfall, the Hinnavoyans start trickling into town. They don't cause any trouble—the Hinnavoyans are quiet and withdrawn—but a handful do come to your chapel.

A man in a finely embroidered coat walks up to the mural of Vild, kissing his fingertips and touching the goddess' face, but he doesn't drink from the blessed fountain. Instead, he looks at you sidelong, like he's sizing you up.

He's middle-aged, tanned and weathered and with a scraggly auburn beard, and much too stocky and rough looking to be wearing that coat. More mercenary than courtier, if you had to guess.

“Blessings of Vild upon you,” he says when he catches you looking at him.

“That's my line,” you reply sedately.

“You missed your cue,” he says, shrugging.

He doesn't really do anything after that, just sheepishly sort of slinks off.

“Don't take it personally,” a woman interjects, as she picks up the offering cup and fills it to the brim with water from the blessed fountain. She is tall, lanky, her skin a deep rich brown and her hair falling over her shoulders in black ringlets. She wears light leather armor, decorated with whorls of yellow paint, though she is unarmed as far as you can see.

“His schoolteacher used to be a vilda,” she says. “Makes him feel like a little schoolboy being around you lot.”

Then she drinks the whole cup breathlessly, in great big gulps as if she's been thirsty for years.

Your mouth falls open in shock.

“You're supposed to sip,” you say, almost dazed by this behavior.

“It ends up in the same place anyway,” the woman replies, patting her belly. She smiles at you winningly—all rows of gleaming white teeth—and this distracts you just enough that you don't pursue the matter.

“Are you the only vilda around here?” she asks.

“The only one in Keylore,” you confirm. “There are a few more verua to speak of.”

The woman nods thoughtfully.

“Good to know,” she says.

Then she leaves, before you can ask _why_ it's good to know

The evening services are slightly more crowded than usual, but other than that minor disruption, nothing really happens.

At least, nothing happens until you get called to the Mayor's office.

 

* * *

 

The Errant King might have once had boyish good looks and an air of charm about him, but now he is a wilted man, tired and stooped under the weight of his broken crown. He's thin and tall, unshaven and with wrinkles around his eyes, and whatever curly-haired prince might have once captured the imaginations of starry-eyed youths, he is now replaced by this worry-gnawed king.

His brown eyes are the first to turn to you when you enter the office. They are soft, placid eyes. He is sitting on the bench along the wall as the Mayor argues with his companion, and you sit down on the same bench, to wait until the Mayor is finished and calls on you. You're not sure if you should have bowed or not, but it's too late to backtrack, and sneaking glances at him, you can tell he isn't particularly insulted by the gesture. You have a hard time believing this is the man who destroyed his own nation out of sheer pride.

“What are you doing here?” the Mayor demands, rising from her seat as she notices you.

Before you can defend yourself, someone else steps forth.

“I asked the vilda to come,” she says, and you notice it is the same woman who visited your chapel the other day. “I thought, you know, only fair,” she shrugs.

“They want to whisk you off south,” the Mayor tells you pointedly.

“Borrow for a bit,” the woman says. She turns to you. “I said borrow, not whisk. We want your help, not to take you along on a whimsical adventure.”

“And why would you need our only vilda, hm?” the Mayor demands. “When we have several verua that could attend your spiritual needs just as capably, if not better.”

_Thanks a lot_ , you mouth to the Mayor. She's a verudite, though, so you are already aware of where her sympathies lie.

But she does have a point. The insistence on taking a vilda along doesn't bode well. It reminds you of a line from a well-known play: You pray to Veru if you are innocent and have been wronged, but you pray to Vild if you are guilty and have been caught.

You hope they aren't expecting miracles. Vildas do not perform on command.

You look to the Errant King. He has silver stars embroidered along the edge of his dark cape. They draw your attention immediately. The moon is Vild's symbol, and silver stars are the marks of vildites. Your own robes have stars along the hems and sleeves, dark blue on silver, the colors reversed to mark you as a priestess.

The King has noticed your scrutiny. He shifts in his place ( _the squirm of the guilty_ , your old first level instructor would have called it), and flicks the edge of the cape so the stars are hidden.

“Myrah tells me you have a chapel here,” the King says, his voice soft. He tilts his chin towards the woman, indicating that she is Myrah.

The Mayor and Myrah continue to argue. You turn your head to the King, and incline it slightly.

“Not a cathedral?” he asks.

“What for? There's only me,” you say.

“Ah. But if there were a cathedral, there'd be more of you,” he says, smiling.

“And then you'd have an easier time prying me from the Mayor's grip?”

He gives a strained smile. Then he reaches into the recesses of his cloak and takes out an envelope, which he hands to you.

“Our old vilda died a few months back,” he says. “But she suggested I give this to a new one.”

You take the envelope. It's smooth, quality paper. There's nothing written on its exterior, and it isn't sealed. You open it and take out the paper inside.

“--Ha, you'll see now, she'll want to come and you won't stop her,” Myrah's voice cuts through, and the Mayor falls silent. “What does it say?”

“It's blank,” you reply.

Myrah stares.

“Blank? It can't be blank, you're reading it wrong,” the woman argues.

“Oh, then perhaps you can demonstrate your technique for me,” you say, and hand her the envelope and the paper.

Myrah turns both over several times, her expression growing increasingly displeased.

“That-- old-- weasel--” she grits out, as if making a monumental effort not to curse on each word. She gnashes her teeth, and you take the paper and envelope before she can do anything hasty.

“I take it that wasn't as convincing as you hoped,” the Mayor drawls, looking quietly smug.

“I should leave,” you say.

“Yes!” says the Mayor.

“No!” says Myrah.

Personally, you know who you fear more. You depart.

 

* * *

 

You go back to the chapel.

You have a room in the back, something like a study and something like a day room. It's larger than your bedroom, which can fit only a narrow cot and a nightstand, so you do most everything here, from eating your meals to studying texts.

You sit in your comfortable chair and inspect the letter carefully. You check inside the envelope, you hold the paper up against a lamp, but nothing reveals itself. If it's from another vilda, it's probably more than just a practical joke. You can see nothing written, but with the right magic, there is any number of secrets a blank piece of paper can hold.

The problem is that you can't think of a single one of those.

Surely the mysterious sender wouldn't make a puzzle that can't be solved. Those are cheating.

You look over your bookshelf for something that could help. Vildas are usually trained in scribe magic, and the mandatory healing magic that both vildas and veruas are expected to perform, but over the years, you learn the magics which can't be taught, the vilda magics that develop on their own with every day of practice. Those can vary greatly from one vilda to the next, and it's impossible to predict what forms they will take.

You smell the paper, but you don't feel the telltale pinpricks of magic. For all intents and purposes, this is a perfectly regular, unmagicked envelope and blank piece of paper.

It's probably symbolic then, you conclude with a frustrated sigh. You were never good at symbolic.

 

* * *

 

You put the letter (if it can even be called such) in your pocket and go about the rest of the day. You expect someone to come ask for it back, perhaps Myrah, but nobody ever does come.

Hinnavoyans come in a steady trickle to your chapel, but they are too shy to ask for more than a blessing. Around noon, old woman Jana drops in on you. She hands you a basket—there's eggs and cheese and a couple of apples in it—and immediately begins complaining.

“Sweet Vild, my youngest is at it again!” she says, hands raised in surrender. When Vild doesn't reply, she turns to you instead. “Do you know what he told me this morning? He said, 'Mama, I met me a Hinnavoyan.'”

“That doesn't sound like his phrasing,” you say.

“Well, he didn't say it, but I could tell he would've if he had the spine,” Jana amends. “He's got his eye on a Hinnavoyan, I can tell. And he's had his mind on marriage ever since his sister left for her apprenticeship! Him and Berth, they're racing to leave from under my roof. Neither wants to be the one saddled with the old woman in her years of need!”

“I'm sure they're not,” you say, even though you're sure they are.

You invite Jana to sit on one of the benches outside your chapel to vent, and a few more women gather there to listen and commiserate. You are handed a few more offerings—mostly food, though deer sweet Bertrude gives you a pair of good sturdy socks—and you listen and offer whatever advice you can.

As noon arrives and the streets empty, so does your chapel. You clean up a bit and go to the back to have lunch, and then return to the chapel for the afternoon service.

You take out the letter in the quiet moments, in the lulls between tasks, and look at it, still trying to figure it out, still waiting for a stroke of genius, but it never works out that way. You end up putting it back in your pocket and out of your mind again, and go about accomplishing something real instead.

It is not a remarkable day, by any accounts. You close the chapel as it gets dark (night services are saved only for holidays, seeing as there aren't more vildas), and sweep the steps last.

It's darkening, but not yet the time for the streetlights to be lit, and that is when you smell something odd. It's sweet and astringent at the same time. It takes you a few moments to place the smell, and by then you feel floaty and disconnected from your body. You let the broom drop, and strong arms clasp around you.

“There now, who brought the sack?” a jovial man's voice asks.

The broom clatters against the stone steps, and that's the last thing you hear.


	2. Saints and Swords

You awake on the back of a cart. The cart is in motion. The motion is making you nauseous.

You turn on your side, prodded by nothing but the healer's instinct to prevent a patient from choking on their own vomit, even if that patient is oneself, but the movement wakes you up fully. You've never been drunk enough to have a hangover, but this must be what it feels like. Your head is pounding.

“Water?” someone offers, and you are handed a waterskin. You take slow sips from it, and though the water is lukewarm, it really does help. It probably helps more that it's lukewarm, come to think of it. You wouldn't give someone in your state cold water.

Someone thoughtfully puts a wadded up coat under your head to cushion it, and you just lay there, helplessly miserable. You can't go to sleep no matter how much you try, but you can't do much of anything either. You simply exist.

You probably do fall asleep at some point, though, because next thing you remember is that the cart has stopped and you are surrounded by talking people.

“Myrah,” the Errant King says, voice not quite as soft anymore for how exasperated it sounds. “Myrah, what did I say?”

“You said I should retrieve Ghesina's letter,” Myrah replies promptly.

The wagon must have stopped, but you can still feel the echoes of its rattling, like ghost sensations through your body.

“Yes, the letter. Not the vilda, _the letter_ ,” the King says.

“And that we did!” Myrah says. “Where's the letter, Byron?”

“In the vilda's pocket,” comes the answer. It is in the voice of your kidnapper.

“How did you know that?” you ask, lifting your head and looking around.

You recognize Byron right away, for his incongruously luxurious coat. You remember him from his visit to your chapel. For all that he is so much larger than you, he looks meek, like a disobedient schoolboy caught in the act.

Myrah, on the other hand, is unrepentant. She smiles widely in your direction.

The King just looks a bit queasy. He probably expects you to put a curse on him for this entire debacle.

“I didn't look through your pockets or nothing,” Byron says defensively, breaking the long silence. “Just that one of my boys saw you put it there.”

Ah, and that's when he probably got the idea. How to obey the king's command to retrieve the letter, and get a vilda in the deal too. That kind of thinking deserves its own kind of punishment.

You sit up.

“Well, too late for me to go back now,” you say.

“No,” the King says, puzzled, “we're barely a few hours out. I can have someone take you back and--”

“I didn't mean,” you cut him off, “that it's too _late_ for me to go back, I meant it's too late for me to _go_ _back_.”

He looks perplexed, not really understanding.

But when you look at Byron, he just looks vaguely worried, edging into the beginnings of panic.

“So then you're staying?” Myrah asks.

“Yes, I'm staying,” you reply.

Myrah looks entirely too pleased for a person who just endorsed kidnapping a member of the clergy.

 

* * *

 

You are given the late vilda Ghesina's wagon. By all rights, a vilda's property is returned to the Order upon her death; given that you are the closest of the Order's representatives, this means you inherit all of it.

Immediately you discover that her bed is more comfortable than yours, stacked with countless mismatched pillows. There's a chest of clothing—most of which is a bit too large on you—and another chest of assorted everyday items, both fitting neatly side by side under the bed. There is a light desk along on side of the wagon, and a writing case on it. Opposite the desk, there is a narrow sofa. There is even an iron cast stove along one wall. The floor of the wagon is covered in a single threadbare rug, once red but faded to brown. Every other available space is filled with cabinets and storage chests.

You pull the heavy golden-brown curtain away from a window, and sunlight streams in.

You take stock of Ghesina's home, of Ghesina's life, and you wonder what kind of person she might have been.

 

* * *

 

You judge it to be around noon when the caravan stops. Between the fact that you spent the whole night heavily sedated and that it's been almost an entire day since you had your last meal, you're feeling fairly lightheaded as you leave Ghesina's—your—wagon.

You go around the wagon to the front, and it's only then you think to ask yourself who's been driving it. A girl is patting the head of one of the two angmara pulling the wagon. She looks scarcely into her teens, babyfat still clinging to her cheeks, but otherwise lovely, with wide black eyes and dark skin.

She turns her head to look at you, curious but not surprised. You raise a hand in greeting.

“I'm glad the wagon went to another vilda, it's what Ghesina wanted from the start,” she says, giving you a shy smile.

You nod. You can understand that. Vildas are careful with each other's possessions. And they are careful with their own, as well. Clothes and furniture and practical things are easy to part with, especially for the benefit of others, but objects of sentimental value are considered particularly precious, especially when they once belonged to another sister.

“I'm Kazima,” the girl introduces herself.

“Pia,” you reply in kind.

You approach the angmara team cautiously. You've never seen one of the beasts up close—they aren't really town-friendly animals—but you don't dare touch them. Kazima switches to gently patting the head of the other angmara, which makes a happy snarfling sound and raises its long prehensile snout to curl around Kazima's arm.

“They're unusually friendly towards strangers,” Kazima tells you, and takes your hand, placing against the angmara's head.

It doesn't make any noise, merely sits very still, but you are more than fine with that. The gray hair covering it is fine and velvety smooth, shorter on the front of its body, but growing longer towards its back and ending in a tuft of a tail. You are endeared to the animals, even if they're as tall as you are and probably heavy enough to crush you like a mislaid pair of glasses. You eye the front legs of the angmara and notice how frightfully muscled they are.

You notice something amiss, and turn your head to Kazima's left arm. The sleeve hangs strangely, and you can't quite figure out why until Kazima raises her arm and you see that she is missing her hand and about half a forearm. By the way she moves it, it can't be a new injury. She doesn't carry it like she's in pain, or like she still expects to have use of her hand.

“It was an accident,” Kazima says, with the kind of patience one develops after growing used to stares and indiscreet questions. You weren't going to ask, but saying that now would make you sound defensive.

“My apologies. I was just concerned life with on the road might be a bit more dangerous than I anticipated,” you say instead.

“Not especially so,” Kazima shrugs.

“How was Ghesina's body disposed of?”

“Pyre at sunset.”

It is oddly comforting to know she got a proper send-off, at least.

“Ghesina was pleased by the service, even if it was conducted by a verua,” Kazima shares with a sly smile. “She grumbled a lot, but I could tell.”

“You... could...”

You look Kazima up and down again—no priestess robes, but a black ribbon around her upper arm—the left one—and her shirt and vest are, now that you notice, modified from old robes.

“Necromancer?” you ask. You know they start their calling young, but Kazima is the youngest you've met yet.

“Bit of that. Grandpa was the undertaker for our village. Also the gravedigger. And he could carve some pretty tombstones, too. People were very polite about not dying too often in our village, but I still got to help him. I guess some of it stuck.”

“So you aren't Hinnavoyan,” you conclude.

“Oh, no! No, no,” she laughs. “My sister and I just decided to tag along. Village was getting a bit smothering, you know?”

You sort of do, even though you weren't born in a village. Your mother was vilda, so you were raised by the Order, alongside the other children. It was hard, trying to assert yourself as a vilda and an adult in front of the women who still remembered you as a tiny girl with perpetually skinned knees. The first time you took up service, you chose the farthest, more remote location you could, an outpost in the mountains. You learned a lot of things there, on your own, where you couldn't rely on another vilda to pick up your slack.

“So your sister is responsible for you?”

“I'm responsible for myself,” Kazima replies.

“I meant because you're so young,” you begin.

“I'm nineteen!” Kazima says, indignant.

You bite the inside of your cheek in embarrassment. You hadn't given her more than fourteen.

“I'm sorry, you _look_ young--” You stop yourself, because judging by Kazima's expression, this was also the wrong thing to say. “Your sister, is she a necromancer too?”

Kazima looks appeased by the change of subject.

“No, Tyberia's verua. She got her consecration just before we left the village.”

Then her sister must be around the same age, maybe older. Tyberia. Like the saint, perhaps.

“What about Ghesina?” you ask.

“What about her?”

“Did she tag along too?”

Kazima goes quiet for a few moments.

“No, she was Hinnavoy,” Kazima says after a while. “She never said so outright, but the way she talked and the way the King acted around her was telling.” She pauses for a moment, but then adds in a conspiratorial whisper, “She could see the future.”

“Could she?” you ask, and you can't help the surprise in your voice.

It's a rare gift. You hear about it in rumor, sometimes, of a farmer who can predict when crops fail or a seamstress who has an uncanny gift for predicting fashion, but mostly it's just exaggerated stories or wishful thinking. The only one in recent history you know for sure could predict the future was the Song Queen, who could weave prophecy into music, but that didn't stop her from getting her head chopped off by the Liners at the Last Bloody Stand.

“She was very old,” Kazima says, like that explains everything. Maybe in a way it does.

“Do you still talk to her?”

“No,” Kazima shakes her head. “She's far away now, and not worth bothering. The dead can't see the future, anyway. Not our future, though maybe the future on that other side? That's actually a good question, I'll have to remember to ask someone.”

“She knew I'd come to replace her,” you say.

“Maybe!” Kazima shrugs. “She told me once she was very sorry she had to rely on someone else to finish her work.”

Interesting phrasing. Finish her work.

“Did she mention what work in particular?” you ask.

“I always thought she meant this journey.”

“We're going south, aren't we?”

“South-west. The King intends to cross the sea. Start new on the other side.”

“Ah. But that would take him....”

“Crossing the old battlefields and within a slingshot's throw of the City, yes,” Kazima confirms, face darkening. “The Liners gave him special dispensation to pass through their territory.”

“But it's not a popular plan?” you say.

Kazima shakes her head, distracted, then takes your hand and holds it tight.

“You need to hold us together, Vilda Pia,” she says in a near whisper. “I think Ghesina did all she could before she died, but it wasn't enough. You need to do better.”

“Alright,” you reply, voice just as low.

“Do you want me to show you where the angmara feed is?” she asks next.

“Um. Yes,” you reply. “Yes, I think that will be necessary.”

 

* * *

 

Kazima ends up not only showing you where the feed is, but also giving you a crash course on angmara care, which she then proceeds to quiz you on so thoroughly, you get flashbacks to your years in Instructor Ibrahim's history class.

You manage to convince her you are too weakened with hunger to continue, and she laughs, but shows you how to find the food wagon. You are both given bread and a bit of cheese by a sour-faced old man, and Kazima explains that the bigger meals are saved for mornings and evenings.

She sits on the driver's seat with you as the caravan starts moving again, but you discover that the angmara know what to do and the wagon requires no steering on the open road.

“If the terrain's tricky, that's a different story,” Kazima says, “but this is an old pair and they know their spot in the caravan.”

She talks for a while longer, telling you about life on the road, but after an hour or so, she jumps off and leaves for her own business, whatever that might be.

You go back inside the wagon and lie down for a while, but the constant motion is making it hard to sleep. Instead, you go through all the cabinets and drawers you can find, cataloguing their content for future use.

It's evening when the caravan stops.

 

* * *

 

The evening is lively and bright. You remember only motion and light as camp is put down for the night, on the side of a gently sloping hill covered in drying grass. Fires are lit at intervals and the smell of food begins filling the air.

You wander without a clear idea of where you're going, and fearing you might not be able to find your way back to the wagon, but you look and listen and try to get a feel of the people around you, people you will get to know and help.

A lot of them are former soldiers, and you recognize them by the military efficiency they employ while setting up their tents. The bulk of the Hinnavoyan survivors is made up of the army and camp following which survived the Last Bloody Stand, but once in a while you spot the odd tag-along, foreign merchants, craftspeople who perhaps did not have much success in their old locations, travelers who seek the safety of numbers, and runaways. You can always tell the runaways apart.

You observe the layout, trying to discern whether it has a pattern you should be learning. The tents are arranged in rough rows, the remnants of the old military discipline enduring through the civilian laxness, but wagons are parked haphazardly, wherever there's room. Some people make their bedrolls under such wagons, hanging blankets or tarps for privacy.

But under all of this, there's a tension in the air, and people carry themselves as if they are brittle with anger or fear or something worse.

You pass two men arguing, screaming at each other. The source of the arguments seems to be a pan with the remains of burnt food stuck to it. The one holding it emits a shriek and throws it to the ground.

Before the confrontation has the chance to turn physical, you step between them. You don't say anything to them, or even look at them, really, you just pick up the pan.

“The burnt bits can be scrubbed off, but that's not how you do it,” you say, calmly addressing the one who threw it. His fists unclench and the fight drains out of him as he loses his momentum. Whether he knows who you are or not, your robes give him pause.

“Yes, vilda,” he says faintly, and takes the pan.

You walk on.

You walk until you reach what you think is the edge of the camp, where voices are hushed and people keep their heads down, but you notice another few rows of tents set up apart from the others.

Or maybe it isn't that the tents were purposefully set apart, it's that people are avoiding them. The way people have set up in this part, it looks like they're trying to block off the view of them. Fear or anger or something else, you think again.

You walk towards those tents. There is a gutter of darkness here, between them and the main camp, and you walk quietly. As you approach, you notice the two people sitting by a fire, though they don't notice you. A man and a woman, wearing light blue tunics with an embroidered half-sun on the chest.

They are verudite knights, you realize. Heretics. Schismatics. Your heart gives a thump, and you break out in cold sweat. There have been occasions in the past when veruas have ended up leading either armies or rebellions in reaction to deep injustice or in defense of those who could not protect themselves. But verudite knights think that that is the only thing of value varuas have ever done, and that kind of ideology tends to attract a violent, reactive folk with a mind for violence. The kind who shun diplomacy, and see compromise only as weakness.

You skim away from the light, going around them and their tent. You weave your way through the dark spaces between tents, unsure what you're doing until you step out and face a black tent lit all around with braziers.

You feel a terrible sense of foreboding come over you, throbbing waves of it with every heart beat. You walk towards that black tent, sweating fear with every step. In the corner of your eye, you can see a blue tunic, as a knight spots you and rises to their feet, moving towards you.

You are only steps away from the tent, and you raise your hand, ready to push apart the entrance covering and go in. The knight cannot reach you in time.

But you do not make it either way. The material moves without your touch and someone comes out. You stop in your tracks. In the corner of your eye, you see that so does the knight.

The woman before you is just as surprised by your presence as you are by hers. Her features are drawn with worry, but even in the flickering firelight, in her high cheekbones and elegantly arching shape of her brows, you can see the resemblance to Kazima.

“Tyberia,” you say, voice pleased as if you'd been looking specifically for her.

For a long moment, she only stares at you, stranger that you are. You can see the moment she figures it out and realizes that your fate is entirely in your hands.

“Ah,” she says, and locks her arm with yours, “let me walk you back.”

The knight retreats back to the fire, and Tyberia leads you away.

You are back in the camp proper when you finally speak.

“You don't strike me as a heretic,” you say.

Tyberia laughs.

“I'm not,” she says. “And I don't mean I'm not in the same sense heretics mean when they say they're not, I mean I'm an orthodox despite my company.”

“Preaching to those most in need?” you ask on a sudden suspicion.

“Those who stray farthest need the best guides,” she says with a shrug, and you recognize this line as something from your own education as well.

“I'm surprised they tolerate it.”

“They're not the violent psychopaths people make them out to be.”

“There is a vast ocean of possibilities between violent psychopath and reasonable human being.”

“Well, I've always been a strong swimmer,” she replies stiffly.

You try not to let your disapproval show. You try to remember that you were once young and idealistic as well, and that it was something you had to grow out of on your own.

“Tyberia was a saint of the sword, wasn't she?” you ask.

“She was,” comes the pleased answer. “Do you know what made her different?”

You can recall several things that made her different, but you shake your head, curious to know what so fascinates Tyberia about her namesake. She is obviously eager to tell you.

“She was never martyred,” she says. “All the well-known saints of the sword, they're martyrs, have you noticed? They died in a blaze of glory, and so they get the big holidays. But Tyberia lead a rebellion, managed to see it through with minimal casualties, and then took up a minor position in the new government and personally oversaw the opening of several new schools and libraries.”

“And you want to be like her,” you surmise.

“Wouldn't you?” she retorts.

“A vilda would not pick up the sword,” you reply, and feel cowardly for this stock answer.

Tyberia laughs.

“I think a vilda would do whatever was damn well needed of her,” Tyberia says, “she just wouldn't let anyone draw a mural of it afterward.”

You press your lips together, because she's right.

You arrive at your wagon and she releases your arm, stepping back.

“We need the knights,” Tyberia says, somber and quiet. “We need them to pass through the bloodfields.”

“Why? The war's been over. Kazima told me the King received a special dispensation,” you say.

“You don't know about the bloodfields, do you?” she asks.

“What about the bloodfields?”

“Ask Myrah,” she says, shaking her head. “She saw them herself. She'll tell you.”

“I will,” you say. “And the black tent?”

“What about it?”

“What's inside?”

Tyberia gives you a sidelong look, debating whether she should tell you.

“We need that too,” she says finally, and leaves before you can ask her to elaborate.


	3. Silver for Vild

You are woken from unsettling dreams of crying children by a booming knock on the door, and spring up out of bed. You open the door to the wagon barefoot and still dressed in one of Ghesina's nightgowns, and you are greeted only by Kazima, giving you an innocent, dimply smile.

“They're setting up the tabernacle for services,” she tells you. “I thought someone should tell you. It's the caravan's fifthday.”

“The caravan has its own fifthday?” you ask.

Kazima shrugs.

“Life constantly on the road can take its toll,” she says.

You ask Kazima to wait while you get dressed. She shrugs and sits on the wagon's step.

You have lost track of your own fifthday. You think it might be today, but even if it is, you aren't going to take it. The first service is always important. It sets the tone for all the others.

As you're putting on your shoe, you are struck by the sudden thought that _who_ comes to the first service also tends to set the tone.

You drop the shoe and start opening cabinet doors and drawers, trying to recall where you'd seen the item you're seeking. You find soon enough, a decently sized pot with a solid handle.

You open the door to find Kazima still waiting. She gives your bare foot an odd look.

“Kazima, do you know what a castigation bowl is?” you ask.

“Uh. It's a bowl,” Kazima ventures, “that vildas use... to... castigate people.”

“Yes, you've just accurately described the concept of a castigation bowl,” you say, hiding a smile.

It's not really a mainstay of vildite tradition anymore. Time was, vildas would walk the streets the day before an important service, asking people if they were going to attend. If they replied in the negative, they had to put a coin in the castigation bowl. One could lie about going to the service and eschew the payment, but that was seen as a horrendously risky course of action, and superstition warned about all manner of terrible punishments, even if the vildas themselves did not.

“And vildas still do that?” Kazima asks.

“Certainly.”

No. Not really. Sort of.

It wasn't a very popular method of raising money for the Order, and it was abandoned in favor of more reliable means, but in far away places, isolated and unimportant communities in which the Order has neither eyes nor stakes, vildas in need can still get away with it.

And you are fairly certain _you_ can get away with it.

“We will be flexible about the payment, of course,” you say.

“I don't think people are going to go for it,” Kazima says, casting a dubious look at your pot.

“Nonsense. When a vilda is looming over them, people will do whatever it takes to make her go away,” you reply.

 

* * *

 

Kazima joins you for breakfast, but also follows you when you go to check out the tabernacle. You wonder if she used to trail Ghesina like this, because you can't think of any particular thing you've done that could have possibly made her so attached.

The tabernacle is rather smaller than you expected, able to fit maybe a hundred people, and a bit threadbare, but it's painted in the deep royal blue you see on very old temple walls or palace murals. The stars have recently been re-painted, not silver, but a glossy clean white at any rate.

The smell is rather distinctive, though. Something that suggests the prolonged presence of animals at some point. You wrinkle your nose.

“What was its original use?” you ask.

“It's where the King used to store his gryphon!” Kazima replies cheerily.

“ _Store_ his gryphon?”

“House it? Shelter it. It's where he put it away when he wasn't riding it into battle, is what I gather,” Kazima shrugs.

“But not anymore.”

“It died at the Last Stand,” Kazima says.

“And left behind its shelter for our use. How generous,” you say, though you don't know if you're talking about the King or his gryphon.

Well. Considering the dietary requirements of an adult gryphon, maybe it was for the best. Though you can't imagine the King would have been pleased to lose the symbol of his rule.

It does come as a surprise that the gryphon simply died and was not replaced by a new one. It's not how gryphons work, to your knowledge.

Another thing to ask Myrah, you decide.

 

* * *

 

As it happens, a good round with the castigation bowl should start with a visit to an upstanding member of the community anyway. Kazima shows you to Myrah's tent.

Byron is just outside the entrance, and his beard quivers when he sees you.

“Pardon, Vilda,” Byron says, “but the captain's in a meeting right now. It isn't urgent, is it?”

“Not at all,” you say, smiling at him. “Will you be at the service tonight?” you ask.

“Yes, Vilda,” he replies placidly.

You give him a nod, and he seems to relax at least a fraction. Kazima casts a disappointed look at the empty pot.

You take this time to study Byron's coat. On the fine edge where intuition melds with your own personal vilda magic, something percolates.

“You won this coat in a bet,” you say.

Byron's back stiffens.

“Yes, Vilda,” he says.

“Terrible vice, gambling.”

“Won't do it again, Vilda.”

“What, ever?” you ask, hiding a smile. “That's a rather extreme measure.”

“Er...” Sweat prickles on his forehead. “I won't... do it... very often?” he says.

“Alright, if you insist,” you say.

Before Byron can respond, the tent flap opens and the King comes out. His eyes are unfocused as he looks into the distance, and his brow is furrowed in deep thought.

“Good morning, Your Majesty. Will you be attending the service tonight?” you ask.

He's startled, only just then noticing you. Then he looks at the pot in your hands.

“Er, yes,” he says, then clears his throat and adds with more conviction, “yes, of course.”

You hear Kazima sigh.

The King departs after that. If he wore a cape, you'd expect it to snap dramatically behind him as he flounced off, but you suppose he must only wear one when going into towns.

No crown either, you note.

“You can see her now,” Byron offers, holding the tent flap open for you.

“And you can keep Kazima company as she waits,” you reply.

You think you can feel Kazima throwing you a broody glare as the tent flap falls behind you.

The interior is unexpectedly warm and welcoming. There is a cot and a travel chest in one corner. A spherical lantern hangs from the roof of the tent, casting warm orange light over everything.

Myrah sits at a light table flipping through a ledger without much enthusiasm. She is not wearing armor today, only a black jacket with cream trimmings and matching trousers. She looks up at you, and does a double take.

“I was expecting Byron,” she says.

“Will you be attending the service tonight?” you ask.

She cracks a smile, but shakes her head.

“Then,” you sigh, and place the pot on her desk, right on top of her ledger, “best put something in the castigation bowl.”

She laughs.

“What, really?”

You give her your sternest look.

“...Alright,” she says, and rises, walking towards the chest in a corner. She unlocks it with a key and rifles through it, eventually producing a silver coin. “Silver for Vild, gold for Veru, right?”

“You're familiar with the tradition, I see.”

The coin rings loudly as it hits the bottom of the pot.

“I'm going to guess by the fact that I seem to be your first contributor to the bowl that you intimidated Byron into attending service,” Myrah says.

“I would prefer to think that my presence inspired him to pious sentiment,” you sniff.

Myrah gives a husky laugh to that.

“What does Byron do, exactly?” you ask, picking up your pot.

“He's something of a quartermaster, you could say. We call him the camp steward,” Myrah says. “He's in charge of supplies, making sure the people have food, clothes, medicine, tools... clergy.”

You purse your lips at her, and she gives an embarrassed little cough, but if she hadn't said it, you would have.

“Myrah, I need to know something,” you say.

“Nothing that would qualify as a confession, I hope,” she says, her eyebrows rising in mock alarm.

“I will be worried if it does,” you say. “It's about the heretic knights.”

“Ah,” she says, and relaxes. She folds her arms and leans against the desk. She stops leaning against it when it almost topples over. “We need them.”

“To cross the bloodfields, yes,” you say. “But why?”

“You don't know about the bloodfields, do you?” she says. You shake your head. “It's... not the first time we've tried crossing them.”

She falls silent.

“So?” you ask, sounding a bit too blunt and loud against her silence.

“And obviously we didn't make it through!” she says. “We had a deal, with the Salt Queen, that if we got to the sea, we would be granted free passage south. And we had a deal with the Liners that we'd be allowed to pass through their territory. All that was required was for us to simply go through it. But it wasn't what we expected. That place, it... it's different now.”

She licks her lips before she continues.

“I don't know if it's something we did, or that they did, if it was some price for using true mages, but that place is not normal anymore. It's... dangerous. Wild with magic, and bloody, and deadly. There are things...” Myrah makes a gesture with her hand, futile, and gives up, shaking her head. “There are things that kill and can't be killed, there are places where the landscape just... just seems to hate and thirst for blood, like it has its own pulse that you feel in your head and down your spine. There are awful things in the bloodfields, and we weren't prepared for it the first time. A quarter of our people died.” She adds the last part in a whisper.

There's a lump in your throat. You don't know if you're afraid, but some sort of intense emotion sweeps over you and makes you break in cold sweat.

“But you're prepared for it now?” you ask. “With the heretic knights and the... the thing in the black tent?”

Myrah gives you a sidelong look.

“You don't know what's in the tent, do you?” she asks.

“Tyberia said you need it to cross the bloodfields.”

“Some would say Tyberia's wrong.”

“Is she?”

“We'll find out, won't we?”

“So what is it?” you ask.

Myrah considers the question, rubbing her chin as she looks at you. Her eyes are dark and wide and she is scared of something, she is hesitant.

“I'll tell you once we get closer to the bloodfields,” she says.

“Why?” you ask.

“Because I think you will understand it easier then,” she says. “Trust me on this. I'm going to answer your question.”

“You didn't answer the part of my question about the heretics, though.”

Myrah laughs again.

“Sweet Vild, you are ridiculous,” she says. “Why do you even care, you're not a verua!”

“I am exceedingly nosy,” you say.

“They're an alright lot,” Myrah says. “They haven't caused any serious trouble.”

“Only non-serious trouble?”

“What do you want me to say?” Myrah shrugs. “There are conflicts sometimes. I don't think it had anything in particular to do with their being verudite knights. They're not as bad as you think they are, trust me on this.”

She looks at your pot.

“Maybe you should ask them if they'll be attending service,” Myrah suggests, a flicker of mirth in her voice.

“Of course I will,” you say.

“What, really?”

“Yes. If they're as harmless as you insist,” you say, “there should be no reason not to ask.”

“I don't think they ever attended any of Ghesina's services,” Myrah says. “But then, I don't think she ever asked them to. You know, I think I'd like my coin back.”

“Why?”

“Because I will be there tonight. If you can convince them to come, I actually want to witness this.”

“No, I'm sorry,” you say. “Consider it a hindsight tax. You should have given it more thought before saying you wouldn't come.”

“It's right there, nobody even knows I gave it to you,” Myrah says, pointing to the silver coin.

“Vild knows,” you say very seriously. “It's her money now.”

Myrah's nose wrinkles in frustration.

“This is what we get for picking the first vilda we came across,” she mutters. “We should've shopped around.”

“Good thing you've already paid your hindsight tax,” you reply.

You turn to leave, but stop in your tracks.

“I was meaning to ask,” you say, turning around again, “what happened to the gryphon?”

“She died on the battlefield,” Myrah says. “I'm sorry, if this is about the tabernacle, we lost the proper one when--”

“No, no,” you interrupt. “I'm just surprised, I thought gryphons left behind an egg when they died.”

“That they do,” Myrah says. “But she died on the battlefield, to give us time for a retreat. Whatever egg was left behind probably didn't stay in one piece for long.”

“That's regretable,” you say.

Myrah shakes her head.

“Don't ask the King about it, please,” she says, voice soft. “Just, don't bring it up.”

“I won't,” you promise.

 

* * *

 

Byron makes himself scarce the moment you step out of Myrah's tent. Kazima peeks into your pot. She takes out the silver coin, turning it over in her fingers.

“Oh,” she says, “it's a silver hinar!”

“That so?” You look at it as well. The simplified emblem of Hinnavoy, a gryphon surrounded by wreaths, glints on one side.

“She didn't even give you paper money,” Kazima grins, tilting her head. After a few moments she adds, “Even if Hinnavoy was still around, this still wouldn't be worth anything but the metal it's made of.”

“Silver for Vild, gold for Veru,” you say.

Kazima shrugs and lets the coin drop back into the pot. The grin still doesn't leave her face, and you grow suspicious at the way she turns her head, as if listening to someone whispering in her ear.

“Is someone in the afterlife laughing at me right now, Kazima?” you ask.

She looks abashed.

“Old woman Timmia died a few nights ago,” she says by way of explanation.

“Well, old woman Timmia can sing the midnight praises for the next five nights for that,” you reply.

Kazima looks at you, incredulous.

“The veil of death may hide Timmia from my gaze, but Vild has no such limitations,” you add ominously. “Tell her to start practicing.”

Kazima nods quickly.

“She's not laughing anymore,” she says after a few moments.

 

* * *

 

It goes smoothly enough with the rest of the camp. Some of the older ones, Hinnavoyans usually, are familiar with the castigation bowl, and stop you to tell you about their youth, when they would follow the vilda around and jeer at those who did not want to put money into the bowl or come to service. You hope they don't give Kazima any ideas.

Most people reply in the affirmative when you ask them if they will come, and you find that an encouraging sign, even if Kazima bemoans the relative emptiness of the pot. You stretch the definition of payment enough that there are bits and bobs more than money in it, anyway. Broken off pieces of jewelry, beads, a portable sewing kit, a shiny marble and various other small objects rattle around by the time you go from one end of the camp to another.

“Are we going back to count the loot now?” Kazima asks, inspecting a horse carved out of wood, small enough to fit in her palm. It was dropped in the castigation bowl by a silent old man just as he finished carving it.

You ignore the bite of sarcasm in her voice.

“We're not quite done yet,” you say.

Her head turns around, towards the only part of the camp you haven't visited.

“But,” she begins, and then doesn't continue when she can't quite phrase a protest that won't sound like voicing the obvious.

“You don't have to come along,” you say.

Kazima snorts.

“Like I'm going to miss this,” she mutters.

She follows you into the verudite knights' camp, close on your heels as you approach a small gathering around a fire. They look friendly enough, for a pack of violent heretics. They sit on folded tarps on the ground, clustered together while chatting amicably and elbowing each other. Half a dozen knights look at you as you come near them, while one of them keeps stirring a stew on the fire.

“Are you fellows coming to the service tonight?” you ask.

There's a moment of silence.

“...Vilda Pia?” one of them croaks uncertainly.

You finally focus on a single face long enough to notice that the one who spoke is Jana's son, Arinn. You'd recognize his moon-shaped face and narrow eyes anywhere. He looks more like his mother than any of his siblings.

“I know _you_ certainly will, won't you Arinn?” you say, not missing a beat. “To pray for your mother's health, now that you've left her behind.”

“Berth's going to take good care of her,” Arinn says defensively.

“Of course he will, he doesn't have a choice now.”

Arinn turns a proper shade of red.

“My money was always on you anyway,” you add in a stage whisper. In fact, your money was on neither of them, because you've always suspected Jana will outlive you all.

This time Arinn blushes harder as the person besides him bursts into laughter.

“I'll be there, Vilda,” he mutters.

You nod approvingly and turn to the next knight. The woman next to Arinn plays with a lock of her long dark brown hair, half-unbraided and fanned over one shoulder.

“Ghesina never asked us to come to service,” she says, voice sweet as a drizzle of honey.

“Then it's a good thing I came along,” you reply, keeping your voice business-like. “That was a terrible oversight on her part.”

The woman looks at you for a few moments, face neutral even though you can sense her mistrust, and then she shrugs.

“I will join Arinn,” she says, elbowing him. “He could use the company.”

The next person in line hesitantly places a copper into your pot, all while throwing uncertain glances towards the one busying themselves with the stew. Nobody seems to take much notice of it. A few more mumbled promises of going to service follow, and you're up to the last one.

The young person stirring the stew looks up at you. You can't really get a fix on gender, your usual instincts coming up with an uncertain blank, but they have green eyes, a striking gemstone kind of color, and wavy black hair down to their shoulder. They are tall, with dark bronze skin like the knights in bards' songs, and a strong jawline shadowed by stubble. It is odd to see such a person down to their tunic, stirring a pot of stew with the focused intensity of an old housecook.

They keep stirring as they look from you, to the castigation bowl, to Kazima.

“Aren't you the verua's sister?” they ask. “Does Tyberia know you're following the vilda around?”

Kazima shrugs, but her shoulders come up so high it looks defensive.

“So? Our mother was a faithful vildite,” she says. “Dad was more of a flopper,” she continues, a fond smile on her lips. “Used to say he could be faithful to one woman, but not to one goddess.”

They make a non-committal sound of acknowledgment.

“Will you be attending the service?” you ask.

“To be completely honest, I am not a vildite,” they reply.

“To be completely honest, I am not picky,” you say.

They laugh, soft and silky.

“Not verudite either,” they continue. “Fhiorite.” Then they tilt their chin towards the horizon, as if pointing to the mountains.

The folk up in the mountains to the north and those living on and around the ocean to the south worship Fhior and Fheld in a syzygy, just as the people in the lands between the ocean and the mountains worship Vild and Veru. You've never actually heard one of the mountain folk refer to themselves as a Fhiorite, though. They call Fhior 'Father Mountain' and speak about him as if he were a kindly grandfather, and think words like 'Fhiorite' sound too hoity-toity for their tastes.

“Ah,” you say, “I haven't encountered a Fhiorite in a long time.”

“Whereas I wake up in one's bedroll every morning,” they reply, a slight smile on their lips. They hand over the wooden spoon to the knight next to them and wipe their hand on their pants before extending it to you. “Sidolph.”

You accept the hand, though they clasp it in an unfamiliar type of grip, and introduce yourself as well.

“Ze leads the knights,” Kazima tells you helpfully.

“I don't lead,” Sidolph says, as ze walks around the fire and gestures for you to sit on one of the tarps on the ground. “Nobody leads us. We are equals. I simply try to smooth over the logistical issues where I can.”

“Ze doesn't know that's exactly what leading is because ze's foreign and weird,” Kazima adds as she sits down.

The knights burst into laughter, but Sidolph just looks at a loss.

“Do you think Fhior would mind if you attended one of Vild's services?” you ask.

“You don't think _Vild_ might?” ze replies. “Would that not break some taboo? Incur divine wrath of some type or another?”

“She's not terribly excitable, in my experience,” you say. “Why? Would Fhior mind if I attended one of his services?”

Sidolph laughs.

“I think at the very least he would raise an eyebrow,” ze says.

You shrug. You had a fairly cosmopolitan education in the City. You're sure there must be places where a local vilda might recoil at the thought of a fhiorite casting shadow over her threshold, but you could not accurately point to those places on a map if you had to.

No, your schooling involved learning the places where _you_ would be the interloper, the cities and villages up in the mountains and down by the ocean where the priests dedicated to Fhior and Fheld held the priestesses of the flatlands in contempt. It was even focused, to a lesser degree, on the odd places where the syzygy deviated from the norm, such as the lands where it was considered proper to worship Fheld and Vild together, by some shallow yet impenetrable logic.

“I admit,” you say, “that I didn't expect so many qualms from someone fighting under Veru's banner.”

Everybody goes completely still and silent. You think for a moment that you've finally crossed some line, that you will be cut down for your cheek. You very calmly maintain the same expression on your face, because you will at least die with dignity, and hope they won't take it out on Kazima as well. You wait, in that silence, and hear only the sounds of the camp, the hum of indistinguishable voices in the distance, and the wailing of a child in the distance.

But Sidolph only looks thoughtful, and as everyone looks at zim, ze nods.

“My presence here doesn't seem to make much sense, does it? But whether verudites repudiate me for being a heretic or a heathen doesn't make much of a difference,” ze says. “This is where I have found my place, and this is where I will stay.”

“Then you'll be coming to the service?” you ask.

“Yes, very well, I will be coming to service,” ze says, sighing dramatically. “But just out of curiosity,” ze continues, “what happens if someone says they'll come but do not?”

“Oh, it's said all manner of misfortune might strike someone who lies like that,” you say. The way Sidolph is angled, slightly towards the group, you suspect ze is asking this not so much for zimself as for zir companions to hear the answer.

“Such as?” Arinn asks, voice thready with anxiety.

“Your nails will start growing backwards,” Kazima jumps in to answer.

“Backwards?” Arinn blinks, and looks at his fingers.

“Backwards,” Kazima says, nodding gravely. This prompts the woman next to Arinn to glance down at her own fingers, briefly, before turning her gaze away. The rest of the group seem to be in various stages of consternation.

You clear your throat.

“Yes, well, we really must be going now,” you say. “Come along, Kazima.”

You pick up the pot and take your leave. Sidolph waves, and only after that do the other knights wave as well.

You are far out of sight of the camp when you say out loud, “Sidolph is very charming.”

Kazima snickers a bit.

“Tyberia thinks so,” she says in a sing-song voice.

You almost hide your face in your palms when you realize that Tyberia's reasons for preaching to the knights might be more worldly than you suspected, but you have to admit you can understand why, even if you aren't taken in by it. Is this the same charm that Sidolph worked on Tyberia? On Myrah? On the King?

But not on you. You don't trust charm. You don't trust beautiful green eyes. Though perhaps ze might be persuaded to think you do. You are still curious about that black tent.

No matter, for now. You will discover what it hides, sooner or later.

“Kazima, that thing about fingernails growing backwards,” you begin. “Did you make that up?”

“Yes,” she says. “Do you suppose Vild will mind?”

You abort several replies before you finally say,

“I think she'd be impressed by your imagination.”

Kazima gives a satisfied nod, apparently deciding this was a compliment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If something is unclear, please say so! I would really appreciate it. I try to avoid too many info dumps, but I don't want to be unnecessarily vague either.


	4. Vilda Magic

Kazima makes herself scarce when you mention you want to finish setting up the tabernacle yourself. This is just as well; you prefer doing this kind of work alone.

The structure itself has already been erected at the edge of the camp, aligned westwards, but other than stacking the chests full of religious paraphernalia just inside, nobody has done anything else.

Except for one thing. There is a beautiful intricate tapestry of Vild hung over the western wall of the tabernacle, in lieu of the usual mural that a chapel would have. It's rather intricate, and something in the workmanship makes you think a vilda might have made it.

Vild is portrayed in her silver garb, holding the semblance of the moon in one hand and a chalice in the other, her eyes veiled and a single white rose pinned in her dark hair. These are all common elements in all of Vild's icons, but whoever made the tapestry added minute details and personal touches. Vild's eyes are silver, piercing through the flimsy veil, and instead of the usual stern frown, she has a very slight smile—a curl at the corner of her lips as if keeping a secret. The background, far from being the simple starlit night sky common to murals, also shows hills in the distance, and a pale gray city upon them. The borders of the tapestry are vines of interwoven white roses and speckled feathers.

You touch the tapestry and know that Ghesina made it. Who else could it have been? It must have taken her decades to complete. The silver thread is cold under your fingers, and you wonder what might be left behind once you die.

But that is a question you can ponder as you work, so you set up the room—the altar and its statuettes, the rugs, the braziers in the corners—and it's not until you're putting up the basin meant to serve as fountain that you're interrupted from your reverie.

Byron lingers at the entrance, holding a box and looking about to bolt for cover, but you gesture for him to come in before he can do so.

“Just something I've been meaning to give you, Vilda,” he says, giving the box. It's just large enough it fits into both your hands. “Well, that Ghesina meant to give you, I suppose. She said I'd know when to give it to you, but I'm just guessing here.”

You open the box and look inside, not sure what the items in question have to do with anything at first.

“Ah,” you say after a few moments, as realization grips you, “this is just what I was missing.”

Byron looks gobsmacked.

“Now how'd she know that, when even I didn't--” He shakes his head and makes a frustrated sound. “Not to be rude, Vilda,” he adds quickly after a few moments.

“Not at all, Byron,” you say. “It's something I wonder too. Please, sit.”

“I really didn't mean to interrupt your work, Vilda.”

“My work is almost complete, at any rate.” You point to a chest, now empty of its contents and sitting closed near the entrance. “Sit.”

He does so, uneasily. You take your own seat on an adjacent chest, putting the box from Ghesina aside.

“Someone told me you used to have an old vilda schoolteacher,” you say.

Byron scratches the back of his head and grimaces.

“I did. Frightening woman, that old Vilda Prospina,” he says.

“Was she not a good teacher?” you ask.

“She was a fantastic teacher,” he says. “Hardly ever had to explain anything twice. Didn't smile much, and that scar of hers sometimes put the fright in us,” and Byron traces a finger over his brow and down his cheek, “but she never raised her voice and didn't tolerate no funny business. Watched the playground like a hawk, and Vild forbid she saw any pigtail pulling.”

“Was that why she frightened you?”

“No. No, we got used to her. What scared me is what she did the day we left Hinnavoy for good.”

“What happened?”

“Well,” Byron says, and shrugs a bit, “not sure how much you know, but it was around the time of the-- of the Battle of Three Monarchs. It was getting bad, but none of us knew just how bad. Still thought we had a chance of winning, see. Why wouldn't we? We had the Star King and the Song Queen and the Salt Queen all throwing their forces in that final rush. That kind of thing always works in ballads.

“Then the Salt Queen pulled out. Well, she didn't have the best land troops, and most of them were assigned to protecting us civilians and such, which they did an alright job of, considering they were a pack of pirates. But either way, the Salt Queen pulled out. Too much seawater in her veins for a land campaign, my father used to say. Inclined to think he had her dead to right.

“I was maybe nine, ten years old at the time, I think. Still in Vilda Prospina's class, when the evacuation call went out. We got so little notice that day, most of us only made it out with the shirts on our backs. I remember I had my schoolbook clutched to my chest, and holding on to it as if to dear life. No time to get our parents, neither, so Vilda Prospina took all of us kids and told us to stick close to her. There was this guard—forget his name, but he was one of the soldiers come to warn us. He led the way for us to safety, which is just as well, since we had to cross the battlefield at one point.”

Here Byron pauses, and frowns fiercely towards the ground.

“Vilda Prospina was herding us from the back,” he continues, his voice low as he continues staring at the floor. “We got in a bad spot, and I mean real bad, 'cause a Liner hunting party broke off from the battle and came after us, to pick off refugees, as they do-- when that happened, Vilda Prospina kept telling us, 'don't look back, don't you dare look back, if I catch you looking back I'll be hanging you by the heels from a doorknob'. She used to say those sorts of things all the time,” Byron grins in remembrance, “not that she ever did anything of the like. Scared us right proper. Anyway,” he grows solemn again, “it was bad. We could hear the fighting and the dying and the worse stuff, the... the stuff the True Mages were doing. That buzzing, awful, awful buzzing. Had nightmares about that sound for years. And the hunting party was whooping and hollering and making merry on our heels, and we kept running and running. This lasted a long time, I think. Or maybe it just felt that way. All I remember is that I thought we were goners, that the Liners were going to catch up with us eventually and there was nothing we'd be able to do then.

“But we got through. We reached the other side and the soldiers waiting for us chased off the Liners and we all fell down tired, right on the hard ground. We were aching and scared, but we were going to live. And that's when one of the older kids started crying 'cause one of his baby sisters was missing. Tissy, I think her name was. Or Trissy. Yeah, Trissy. So Vilda Prospina went back for her.”

“Did she find the girl?” you ask.

“Well, I don't rightly now,” Byron confesses. “The thing is, when Vilda Prospina turned around and headed back into the battlefield, she-- She told us not to look back, but I did, and...”

“And?”

“And her back was riddled with arrows,” Byron says, hushed and frightened. “I remember thinking it must've been hundreds. Liner arrows, the ones that glow and burn. So many, all sunk into her back and down her legs. As many and as close together as the hairs in my beard. And Vilda Prospina didn't even seem to notice them. She moved as spry as a deer, and she looked over her shoulder at me, and said... she said, 'I'll be hanging you by your heels from a doorknob when I get back, Byron', because she saw me looking when I shouldn't be. And she disappeared into the battlefield again, and that was last anyone saw of Vilda Prospina.”

Byron pauses for a long time, but you remain silent. He breathes in deeply, not yet finished.

“And by Vild, I don't understand that. All those arrows. Not one of us kids got hit by a single one that day, except maybe little Trissy.”

“She protected you from the arrows,” you say. “Took them all so they wouldn't hit any of the children.”

That's the thing about Vilda magic, you think. The most impressive displays of it always seem to precede a vilda's death.

“That's what I figured, but why?” he asks. “Why couldn't she just send the arrows away, why'd she have to make them hit _her_? If she can do one thing, how much harder would it be to do the other?”

“It had to be a sacrifice,” you say. “Or it wouldn't have worked.”

Byron looks ready to argue for a few moments, but sighs and concedes the way people often do when faced with vilda magic.

“Could _you_ do something like that?” he asks.

“I don't know,” you say. “I can't know until I'm already in the position of making that sacrifice. It's what gives it power. The less you prepare for it, the stronger it is.”

“Sounds backwards to me,” Byron snorts.

“I'm of the opinion that as long as it works, it can sound like a drinking song in the wrong key.”

“Fair enough.” Byron shrugs. He chews on the inside of his cheek for a few moments, brow furrowed in thought. This conversation probably relaxed him a bit, because he actually asks you a personal question. “Just out of curiosity... where were you at the time, Vilda?”

“In the City,” you reply. “I'd just finished my schooling and was waiting for an assignment.”

“Sounds leisurely.”

“Not really. I was on midwife duty to Magosia that entire time.”

“Magosia?” Byron's eyebrows rise very slowly until they're up near his hairline. “You mean Hagress?”

“That may be what most people call her, but her name is Magosia.”

“What most people call her,” Byron grouses, “ is Mother of Monsters.”

You laugh bitterly. “How can she even be called mother when all her children are taken away?”

“She can keep all her abominations, far as I'm concerned,” Byron snorts. “We shouldn't be using them anyway. We'll suffer for it, in the end.”

The silence that follows is laden, and Byron must sense he has offended you in some way, because he makes his excuses and leaves.

You have other things to attend to, and try to push the conversation out of your mind.

You search through the chests and find paper, rolled up and stowed away near the bottom. Opening the box from Ghesina, you take out the small bottle of water, the inkwell and the fountain pen inside.

There's an inscription along the rim of the silver basin meant to hold the blessed water. It says, _Drink of the waters of Hinnavoy for they spring from Vild's blessing_. It would be an easy thing to go to the stream outside of camp and bring back a bucket, but the water would not be from Hinnavoy, because Hinnavoy is long gone. But the small bottle Ghesina has left you holds its water. You take one long drink of it, savoring its coolness and sweet aftertaste. Then you drip a bit of it in the inkwell, and shake it well. By the time you fill the pen, you know what you are going to write.

There's a trick to scribe magic, and that trick is that it will only work if you write about things that that _could_ be true. And what could be true is that given other choices and a different set of circumstances, Hinnavoy might still exist. You write of that would-be, could-be Hinnavoy on the paper, of its waters and fountains and people. You write of how a vilda might collect the waters herself from a chapel's well, or have her own fountain if the chapel's plumbing permitted it.

The paper glows gold, and you rip the page in tiny pieces, and put them in the basin one by one. Each rip comes harder than the one before, because this isn't like the bridge, destroyed in one flash, this is about a country and a people and a long string of disasters. It takes less time, but fights you harder, until finally, reality bends, a thread of possibility presents itself, and you pull on it. The glowing paper dissolves, and water as if from a babbling brook begins filling the basin. The waters of Hinnavoy, existent again.

Everything is ready for service, and now there is just one thing you still need to do.

You pick up the Vild'na Livra and carefully flip to the bookmarked page. It is Ghesina's copy, and her bookmark. It seems fair that you let her decide what the first service will be about.

To your surprise, it opens to a page of the Prohibitions. You were expecting perhaps Parables, or Miracles, or the Historicals. The Prohibitions is a fairly stern chapter for a first sermon.

But your eyes fall upon a scrap of paper stuffed between the pages and partially concealed by the bookmark. You take it out and unfold it. There are only a few words in thick, blocky writing you immediately guess to be Ghesina's.

The writing says 'Byron let it slip'.

You don't understand what Byron let slip or what Ghesina is trying to accomplish by this message, nor do you have the time for this right now. You put the scrap of paper into the pocket of your robe, the same pocket where you keep Ghesina's blank letter. You completely forgot you even still had that.

What a perplexing woman.

You look at the pages of the Livra, in hopes of finding some clue or key that will help you demystify the old vilda's thought process.

_Acquiescing to sin is the same as sharing in it,_ says the very first line on the page.

You shake your head and open Parables instead.

 

* * *

 

They start to gather outside the tabernacle in shy groups of two or three, shuffling their feel. They have no candles, but some carry tapers, which are cheaper and more readily available. By the time the sun sets, a fair crowd has gathered, bigger than could fit inside the tabernacle, so you open the flaps of the entrance as wide as they can be opened.

It's dark when you start services. The braziers crackle with dull white flames which cast little light, and you can't see all the way to the end of the crowd, but you can see the whites of their eyes in the darkness, reflected in the light of lit tapers, as they look at you. Most of them are kneeling, unless they are still shifting around looking for a better spot.

The King is in the first row, as is Myrah. Kazima has snaked her way up front as well, doing a fair bit more elbowing and jostling than you'd normally approve of, and Tyberia is right behind her sister, the crowd parting before her out of respect. Sidolph is present, lingering in the corner, joined by more knights than just the ones you visited with the castigation bowl. Arinn, true to his word, has come as well.

The crowd hushes when you pick up the castigation bowl, and the last few stragglers immediately sit down.

The clinking of metal is very loud as you rummage through the pot, but eventually you extract the shiny silver coin you received from Myrah. You hold it up.

“Silver for Vild, gold for Veru,” you say in the quiet, your voice ringing out clear after years of practice. “The Vild'na Livra says that Vild does not accept payment twice. Neither do I.”

You extend the coin to Myrah and she accepts it, looking bewildered.

“Your presence here is worth more than the money you used to buy absence,” you say. “So in the end, I still count it as profit if I give it back.”

“Thank you?” Myrah says, blinking.

You take out a tiny carved horse next, and gesture towards an old man in the crowd, just a few rows back. He rises to his feet and extends his hand, and you place the horse in his palm. He nods in silent thanks, understanding the ritual.

Then you look towards the verudite knights. Sidolph looks on in interest, and prods the knight next to zim. The knight, a tall bespectacled young man who'd given you a copper coin, makes his way uncertainly towards you, careful not to step on anyone.

You give him his copper coin back, and he looks at it, bewildered.

“But this is the exact same one I gave to you!” he says. “It... it has the same scratch. How did you remember?” His tone borders on the demanding, but you tolerate it, because his question has drawn looks of wonder from the crowd.

“Vild remembers everything that crosses your palm,” you say. “It seems fair I should at least remember every coin that comes to me.”

The crowd murmurs. It's a trick, really, a minor bit of showmanship you learned along the way, but it does its job to impress.

There are only a few more payments to return, people who put things into your pot and showed up anyway, and by the time that is over, the crowd is completely entranced. It matters, that you remember. It matters that you should care for fairness. It matters that you do not take from them more than is yours to take. They are open to you and your words now.

 

* * *

 

The angmara team watches as you approach. Freed from their reins, they did not wander off as you feared, but have curled up on the ground around one another in half-sleep. You place the bucket of fresh water before them.

One—the lighter in color—lazily sinks its prehensile snout into the bucket and sucks up several mouthfuls. After it drinks its fill, it flicks droplets at its partner. The second one makes a displeased moaning sound, more like a sigh than anything, and shifts from its comfortable position to drink as well.

You check their feed buckets and note that they've eaten almost everything.

You pet the nearest angmara gently on the head. It makes a snarfling sort of sound and leans into the touch.

“There, I'm not too bad, am I?” you say to the creature. “I'm not exactly Ghesina, but I make do.”

You have to wonder if maybe Ghesina is having fun at your expense from beyond the grave, but whatever riddle she's trying to help you solve, the answer is probably staring you right in the face.

When you finally go to sleep, the first thing you hear in your dreams is a small child crying.

 


	5. A Crown for Cruel Times

The dream goes like this:

_You were young. You had been in possession of your consecration papers for six weeks. You were in the room you shared for your last year in the City._

_Your roommate was sitting at the only desk in the room. She wrote letters, and sometimes paused to carve a piece of fruit open with a letter opener, eating pieces of its soft core. You looked at her disapprovingly whenever she misused the letter opener, but she ignored you with great aplomb._

_Her name was Aurelia. She was of an age with you, but a verua. She was short and stout and dark, with hair like a black curly halo around her head and a perpetual look of dreaminess on her face._

_You tolerated each other just barely. You disdained her for choosing the name of one of the major saints, Aurelia of the Burning Crown. She disdained you for choosing the name shared by so many minor saints. You had many more concrete reasons to dislike each other, such as your tendency to eschew making your bed or her proclivity towards misusing letter openers, but right in that moment, in the dream, that was the only reason you remembered._

_There was a knock on the door. You answered, and a guard told you, in a quiet, ominous voice, that Magosia was in labor._

_Aurelia rose, and the sound of her chair screeching as its legs dragged against the wooden floor was as loud as thunder._

_This was your first responsibility as a vilda, and likely Aurelia's first as a verua. The vildas and veruas who instructed you would not be there to watch, nor lend any sort of help._

_The walk over to Magosia's tower and up the flight of stairs passed in an instant in the dream, for all that it was barely more than a blur even when it happened in reality._

_But the moment you entered Magosia's chamber was vivid in your mind. The smell of lightning, the damp air, filled with hissing moans of pain. Magosia, curled up against the far wall, giving you a dark stare from under the tangled knots of her wild hair. Her eyes were black pits._

_Magosia clenched her jaw and tolerated you as she had tolerated the help of many priestesses before you._

_You remembered, in this dream, the blemishes on Magosia's body: the strange, glowing bruises that seemed to be on the wrong side of the skin; the bite marks in places Magosia couldn't have bitten herself, but would not have let anyone else touch her either—one on her shoulder blade, one on her calf; the angry stretch marks like black ridges, as if there was nothing but the black void between the stars under her skin, and it was trying to push through._

_Everything else was a heady, nervous blur. Aurelia had to tell you what to do the entire time, while you mutely obeyed. You were frightened, perhaps, but you didn't remember being frightened, you remembered only that it felt as if you'd been hollowed out inside._

_And at the end, when the crying babe had been wrenched from Magosia's cursed womb, its cries reverberating in the tower's walls and carrying to the city's limits, you remembered Magosia reaching out a hesitant, spindly hand to you, and hooking two of her bony fingers over your palm. It was an awkward grasp._

_You stared at the hand, black veins over leather-brown skin, dry and harsh, and you clasped it in your own, lacing your fingers between hers. Magosia gave you a tired look, unreadable to your adrenaline-addled mind. Her hand was warm._

_You felt a dizzying shift in that moment, as if staring down the face of a mountain. The first prickle of vilda magic awakened inside you, not fully formed, but a promise. You did not understand people, but you wanted to. You didn't understand people then, but one day you would._

_Time stuttered in the dream. Aurelia still held the babe, but its cries were silent. She turned to you, and the conversation you had next was one you would only have many years later, when you would meet again._

“ _I know Aurelia is a popular saint among verua, but somehow I don't think you disliked my choice of names just because you thought I was being unoriginal,” she said._

“ _I didn't know you as well as I could have,” you replied. “But Saint Aurelia never stood right with me.”_

_A king once came to her seeking wisdom. He asked how he could avoid becoming a tyrant, how to never betray his people. Saint Aurelia told him, 'Always remember that your title is a burden.' And she enchanted his crown to feel searing hot against his skin whenever he wore it, so that he never forgot. And they called her Saint Aurelia of the Burning Crown._

“ _She was a vengeful woman from much crueler times,” you said._

“ _Oh, Pia,” Aurelia said, looking at you with a gentle smile “haven't you realized? We live in cruel times still.”_

You flinch awake.

 

* * *

 

If Kazima notices your mood, she makes no comment about it, and no comment about anything else, either, just to be on the safe side.

You drop the bucket of water for the angmara team, and they crowd it both at once, nudging their heads together. Kazima sits on the driver's seat and watches you in silence.

“Do you suppose Myrah has the time to see me before the caravan begins moving again?” you ask.

“I think she might be sleeping in,” Kazima says. “What did she do?” she asks, in a much lower tone.

You give Kazima a stern look. She gives a sheepish shrug.

“I had an interesting talk with Byron the other day,” you say.

“Did _Byron_  do something?” Kazima asks, her eyes sparkling with interest once again.

A necromancer with a penchant for gossip. Though this shouldn't surprise you. The dead aren't as guarded about their secrets as the living.

“No, he was perfectly well-behaved. But Magosia came up at one point.”

Kazima tilts her head back, her gaze slipping past you and fixing on some point on the horizon.

“You mean Hagress?” she asks, her tone perfectly casual.

“Magosia,” you repeat. “That's her name. She had a twin brother, a True Mage like her..”

“Did she?” Kazima asks. She leans forward in interest, bracing her elbows against her knees (she folds the stump of her left arm behind the right one, and you can tell it's an old habit).

“She did,” you say. “Magos and Magosia. About two hundred years ago. True Mages live a long time, especially if they don't realize they're supposed to die at some point.”

“So what happened to him?”

“Magosia devoured him,” you tell her.

Kazima blinks. Then narrows her eyes at you and tilts her head.

“You mean metaphorically,” she says slowly.

“I mean literally.”

“With... magic?”

“With her mouth.”

Kazima's own mouth opens and closes again. She scratches her forehead as a look of bewilderment settles on her face.

“Huh,” she says after a long time. “You don't hear about that kind of thing where I come from.”

“You don't hear about that kind of thing most of anywhere,” you say. “It was something horrible. But that was when the pregnancies started.”

“That doesn't sound... very medical,” Kazima says.

“It isn't. I suppose maybe she did devour him metaphorically. Twin magic is strong. Perhaps for beings who can use free magic, even the regular kind the rest of us use would be more potent. A colleague of mine once speculated she might have eaten not just Magos' body, but his soul.”

“There are things that can do that,” Kazima says, confident now that the conversation has crossed into her area of expertise. “They eat souls and make them part of themselves. They're not usually people, though. But I guess neither are True Mages.”

You recall the warmth of Magosia's hand as she clung to you.

“They are,” you say. “Nobody ever allows them to be, but they are anyway. But I am bringing this up for another reason. My colleague also speculated that Magosia's children were the result of her trying to consume her brother's soul. That, in effect, she could not digest it because she did not possess the requisite... digestive system, I suppose you could call it. That it was coming back up again, in little bits and pieces, as her children.”

Kazima alights with interest.

“That's an interesting theory! Was your friend a necromancer?”

“Aurelia was in fact a verua,” you say. “But she thought a lot about this kind of thing.”

“Oh, it sounds like she did!” Kazima says, jumping down from the driver's seat. “I have some books to consult, and I'll have to ask a few questions on the other side, but I think this is worth looking into!”

You stop her, putting a hand on her shoulder before she can bolt.

“It never occurred to you, I take it?” you ask. “That's curious.”

“Why would it be curious?”

“I'd just always assumed, if Aurelia was right, then a necromancer who came close to one of Magosia's children would be able to tell that their soul was only a piece of someone else's.”

Kazima reveals nothing. There's no guilty flinch, no look of worry. There is only a brief, suspicious narrowing of the eyes, but that's all the sign you need. She shakes her head. You can feel her shrugging off the question, reassuring herself that you know nothing.

“It's not like souls work like that,” she says. “Any part is indistinguishable from the whole.”

“I see,” you say. “But you still didn't answer my question.”

“What question?” Kazima asks, turning suddenly cautious.

“Do you think Myrah has time to see me?”

“Oh.” Her shoulders relax. “Sure. Just pop in on her, and she'll make the time.” She shrugs. “It's what I always do.”

 

* * *

 

While Kazima might have been right about Myrah making the time, what she fails to mention is that finding Myrah was the harder part. Her tent is already packed up, and in the orderly chaos of the camp being taken apart, you can't seem to catch up with her before she has already moved on to her next errand.

People give you respectful nods when they see you or, in the case of many elder Hinnavoyans, touch the brim of their hats while grunting something indistinct.

You give up eventually, and spend the rest of the day perched upon your wagon's seat, ruminating on dreams and memories and saints. You are so deep in thought, that you don't even notice the time passing, and only when the caravan stops for the night are you jarred out of your reverie.

You jump down, stretching your stiff legs.

You await until the camp settles for the night before going in search of Myrah. You look around for Byron, expecting him to be hovering somewhere near the entrance. He is not there, but the flap is half-open in invitation. You make your way quickly to the tent, pulling the flap closed behind you.

You do not find Myrah. You find only the Errant King, slumped over in a chair, elbows propped on his knees and head on his hands. When he looks up, his face shows nothing other than tiredness, but even that melts off into surprise.

“Vilda,” he says. “Are you here for Myrah?”

You look around the tent. It seems sparser than last time, and the King occupies the only chair, so you seat yourself on a travel chest off to the King's side.

“I'm here for whoever needs me,” you say.

The King snorts, softly enough you almost miss it.

“I am afraid you might have come too late, Vilda,” he says.

“Too late for what?” you ask. “What could I have prevented had I come earlier?”

He gives you a steady look.

“Myrah is going to tell you when it's time,” he says, voice faint.

“Myrah, yes...” you say, looking at the ground thoughtfully. “But meanwhile, I had a talk with Byron the other day.”

The King stays quiet. Wary.

“The subject of True Mages came up,” you say.

He inhales a bit too quickly.

“What did Byron say?” the King asks slowly.

“He mentioned True Mages being used at the Battle of Three Monarchs.”

The King laughs bitterly.

“Call it what everybody else does, the Last _Bloody_ Stand,” he spits out.

He leans back in his chair. A few moments pass, as you consider how to phrase the next question, but the King speaks again.

“It wasn't us that had the Mages. They belonged to Rhapsodia. ...To the Song Queen. She had three of them, one just recently acquired from the City.” He adds in a low mumble, “And even they couldn't prevent her from getting her head chopped off.”

The King sits up straight and leans towards you.

“They beheaded her right on the field, you know,” he says in hissing anger. “Then they brought her heir, her eldest daughter, and they beheaded her too. And then the eldest son. Then they had her youngest, Remi, crowned king, and made him sign the terms of surrender. And you know the worst part, Vilda? _The terms were fair_.”

He scoffs, leans back while scowling.

“The terms Remi got were more than fair,” the King continues. “Some minor modifications to Ledoria's borders, free passage to traders along the leylines, not even any reparations. The Liners didn't even know what reparations were!”

“But the terms Hinnavoy received were not fair?”

“Hinnavoynever received terms. Hinnavoy didn't even exist anymore by that point. The last assault... After Rhapsodia was captured, the Liners asked for our surrender. We refused. I refused, at least. I didn't give the Salt Queen the chance, because I knew what she'd choose. But I decided that dying in a blaze of glory was my only alternative to living with defeat.”

“I take it the blaze of glory never happened.”

The King shakes his head.

“Myrah doesn't permit blazes of glory.” He sighs. There's a ghost of a fond smile on his face now. “Especially not from her clumsy younger cousin.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“You're surprised,” the King says. “You didn't know we were cousins?”

It's not a terrible shock, all things considered. You hadn't noticed it before, but Myrah and the King do bear a family resemblance. The nose is the same, you think.

“I'm actually more surprised you're the younger one,” you say.

The King rubs a hand over his face.

“It's the stubble, isn't it?” he asks. It is, insofar as his stubble is peppered with white hairs.

“I wasn't going to say anything. Some people get irrationally fond of their own scruffiness.”

The King lets out a surprised bark of laughter.

“Myrah's the one who taught me to shave, too,” he mutters, scratching his cheek thoughtfully. “I should... Maybe I should go put her lessons to use.”

He rises from the chair, unsteady like a newborn fawn, and you rise as well from your seat on the chest. He ambles towards the tent entrance, but before he reaches it, he turns around and looks at you.

“If I'd surrendered at that moment, when Rhapsodia was captured,” he says, “there's a chance they wouldn't have executed her and her family. There's a chance Hinnavoy could have gone on existing.”

“Hinnavoy still exists,” you say. “What you're lamenting is that it doesn't exist in the same form as it did back then. Rule the nation you have, don't mourn one which could have been but wasn't.”

He looks flabbergasted.

“People died because of me,” he starts.

“Yes, they did,” you agree.

He waits for you to continue.

“You're still waiting for that blaze of glory, Your Majesty,” you say. “But you are not permitted to have one. This is your punishment. You will live, you will rule, you will die when you are ancient and decrepit, in your own bed, after decades of serving your people. Until that moment, you must be the best king your people could ask for.”

“Are you giving me an order, Vilda?” he asks.

“I am giving you a curse,” you say, walking towards him. “And I am giving you a crown.”

You raise your hands and picture the night sky. You picture yourself surrounded by stars and the deep unfathomable darkness of the night sky. You picture each star shining, and you reach for the nearest one. Your hand closes around it, and it burns cold as it digs into your palm. But it does not hurt. Instead it shines, brilliant white light, Vild's own glow scouring the soul until it is clean and worthy again.

You pluck that star out of its place on the firmament. You wrest it from the vault of heavens and take it into your hand.

The King's eyes go wide in shock and they fix on your hand. Shards of light escape through your fingers.

You grasp the collar of his jacket with your other hand, gripping it tight in your fist, and you need only tug downwards once, because he falls to his knees easily.

You place the star against his forehead and press it in. The King lets out a hissing breath, like surprise, like pain, but he stands still and steady, he endures as you press harder.

“By Saint Riga's blessing may you rule,” you whisper, quoting the only part of the traditional coronation blessing that you can remember. “By Vild's light may you live. By Veru's light may you thrive.”

The light fades. The stars snuff out, one by one, like tapers being blown out after a service. The blackness of a night sky around you never really existed, but the tent asserts its reality as politely as it can.

The King teeters on his knees, looking ready to fall over. His forehead is unblemished, albeit a bit clammy with sweat.

He can never remove the crown you've given him.

Aurelia was right, in her own way. You live in cruel times still.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BONUS WORLDBUILDING MATERIAL OMG
> 
> Vild and Veru are busy ladies, and sometimes people feel weird about bringing their problems directly to the goddesses. This is where saints come in. They were usually human at some point before being granted sainthood, so they seem much more approachable, and anyway, the gods will probably be more inclined to listen to one of their favored, than just any random mortal... right?
> 
> Here are just a few of these saints:
> 
> Saint Riga
> 
> Saint Riga isn't generally prayed to by the common people. He is invoked when a new monarch is crowned, or when one dies. He intercedes with the gods to bring prosperity, hope for the future and peace to a nation. He is depicted with a hood, a sword, an iron crown and the symbol of the new moon above him. (This is a pun. A new moon in Romanian is sometimes called “crai nou”. This phrase translates literally as “new king”. And “rigă” is also an archaic Romanian term for king, just so you know how dedicated I am to this inside joke).
> 
> He usually finds worship from monarchs of all religious traditions. His likeness can sometimes be found on both coins and paper money. He is one of very few male saints to be found in verudite and vildite worship.
> 
> Saint Tyberia of the Sword
> 
> Depicted holding a scroll, with a sword plunged into the ground before her. She holds one hand up in benediction. Unusual posing for a saint of the sword.
> 
> She intercedes with Veru to grant intellectual vigor and zest for knowledge. Very popular with students everywhere, especially before tests. 
> 
> Saint Aurelia of the Burning Crown
> 
> Depicted with hands stretched upwards, and a golden crown floating above her head. Also depicted with green eyes. The images of saints do not usually show any facial features, but there are some exception. In the cases of saints who were known to have special insight (gift of prophecy, etc.), they are usually shown with silver eyes. The reason Aurelia is usually given green eyes is fiercely debated among religious scholars, but it's usually put down to early depictions of Saint Aurelia predating the establishment of modern iconographic standards.
> 
> She intercedes with Veru to grant wisdom, the capacity for mercy and the strength to make difficult decisions.
> 
> Saint Pia of the Bridges
> 
> Shown as a woman pouring out an amphora of water onto the ground, with three green shoots growing from the puddle. Legend describes her as a vilda who ended a 15 year long drought in a small village. Despite common depictions, local legends state that she went out into a field and struck a boulder with her walking stick, and a stream sprung from it. The story became known only after the vilda's death, and though it could not be confirmed by Order officials, it was deemed plausible and she was elevated to minor sainthood on the strength of her popularity.
> 
> She intercedes with Vild to end droughts and stop floods.
> 
> Saint Simoni of the Sword
> 
> Depictions tend to be inconsistent, but have a common element of a bright red and yellow cap. He intercedes with Vild or Fhior to grant new solutions to problems which can only be solved by unacceptable compromise. He is literally the saint of Taking the Third Option. He is universally rejected by verudite practice.
> 
> Saint Mirai of the Lace
> 
> Courtesan who converted, became a verua and preached to decadent courtiers and high society while still working as a courtesan because religion is nice, but job security is better. The Order of Veru did not take kindly to her moonlighting, despite the many converts she managed to bring into the fold. She was granted minor sainthood. Usually depicted with a wide smile, flowing black hair and a lacy fan in her hand. 
> 
> She intercedes with Veru to grant grace, poise, charm and social acumen.


End file.
